Warnung: *Datenschutz ist in diesem Produkt nicht inbegriffen
"Help a monster friend with big feelings learn to calm down and solve everyday challenges." Yes please! Elmo and the gang at Sesame Street's app, aimed at parents and caregivers of kids aged 2-5, is designed to help the young ones learn how to calm down, learn self-control, and expand their emotional vocabulary. The app is bilingual in English and Spanish, research-based, and free to download and use. How does this app do from a privacy perspective? Well, good and bad. The app itself doesn't seem to collect much personal information. However, Sesame Workshop, which makes all the apps for the Sesame Street gang, well, their privacy policy does raise privacy concerns for us.
Was könnte passieren, wenn etwas schiefgeht?
First reviewed April 20, 2022. Review updated, April 25, 2023
Unfortunately, the changes Sesame Workshop has made to their privacy policy since we last reviewed them leave us feeling a bit like Oscar the Grouch. Grumble grumble grumble. That's the bad news. The good news is, this app is still probably pretty OK from a privacy perspective as it doesn't seem to collect much, if any, personal information. That leaves us with a conundrum. We have a good app, with a bad privacy policy.
When we first reviewed Sesame Workshop's Breath, Think, Do app in 2022, we found a few concerns -- their privacy policy was last updated in 2013, we couldn't confirm they meet our Minimum Security Standards, and no one responded to the questions we sent to the email address listed in their privacy policy for privacy related questions. After publishing our review, Sesame Workshop reached out to us and made some important changes to their privacy and security practices. They acknowledged no one had been monitoring the privacy question email address, and said they would fix that. They established an email for people to report security vulnerabilities in their apps, and they updated their privacy policy. We were quite happy with how willing they were to improve their privacy and security practices.
Unfortunately, in 2023 Sesame Workshop has updated their privacy policy to one that leaves us with some pretty serious concerns. In fact, this app, and all apps covered by Sesame Workshop's privacy policy, now earn our *Privacy Not Included warning label. The things that concerns us most are the fact that they clearly state in their privacy policy they can collect data on you from data brokers and other third party sources, "We may receive Personal Information about you from other sources, including our data broker services, data enhancement companies, list rental services, third-party analytics providers, and social media-owned databases..." They go on to say they can use all this information they collect about you to make inferences about you "to generate information about your likely preferences or other characteristics." Uhg...comes on Sesame Workshop! Can't you just let us play with Elmo and the gang without trying to know our "characteristics"? Is nothing sacred anymore!
We're also bummed because it was unclear to us if all users, regardless of where they live, could have their data deleted. In fact, they state, "No matter where you are located, we provide every user with the right to: Erasure. It’s your right to request that we erase your Personal Information, under certain conditions." Sounds good right? Until you ask, well, what are these mysterious "certain conditions?" And then there's the use of the words "right to request". We know anyone can request anything. We would much rather see this worded in a way that makes it clear all requests will be honored.
Anyway, the good news is, the Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame app itself doesn't require a log in to start using, so it is likely not collecting much or any personal information at all. So, you are probably safe from the concerns we've outlined about the privacy policy that covers this app. However, it is really disappointing to see something so beloved as Sesame Street lean into the data collection, combination, and inference trends chipping away at our privacy everywhere on the internet these days.
Read our 2022 review:
We're not too worried about the privacy of Sesame Workshop's mental development app for young children. The privacy policy does say that sometimes personal information like name and email might be collected but only with parental consent. And with no behavioral advertising (read, targeted ads) on the platform, parents should be able to breathe a small sigh of relief. Sesame Workshop is an educational non-profit, so they aren't trying to make money off you or your child's data, which is a breath of fresh air.
Our biggest privacy flag for this app is the privacy policy hadn't been updated since 2013, which is a very long time in privacy policy years. We're proud to report that after working with Sesame Workshop, they have now updated their privacy policy, as of June 1, 2022! And remember parents, please follow the basic guidelines for protecting young children online (please always do this parents and caregivers!), your child's privacy will likely be pretty safe.
As part of their updated privacy policy, Sesame Workshop has now added a way for people to report security vulnerabilities, which was our biggest outstanding security concern. They now meet our Minimum Security Standards. We have to say, we're pleased to see them be responsive to our research and love that they updated their policies. Good work. We feel pretty good now about the privacy and security of this app for children.
What's the worst that could happen? Hopefully nothing more than your child learns how to be a little bit calmer. Calm is good. But we should remind parents that anything that connects to the internet your child plays with has potential vulnerabilities so it's always good to supervise them when they use your devices
Tipps zu Ihrem Schutz
- Parents should read up and implement the guidelines on how to protect children online.
- Never share your child's personal information online
- Do not provide data about others (your relationships, family, etc.) without their permission.
- Do not log in using third-party accounts
- Do not connect to any third party via the app, or at least make sure that a third party employs decent privacy practices
- Do not give consent for sharing of personal data for marketing and advertisement.
- Chose a strong password! You may use a password control tool like 1Password, KeePass etc
- Do not use social media plug-ins.
- Use your device privacy controls to limit access to your personal information via app (do not give access to your camera, microphone, images, location unless neccessary)
- Keep your app regularly updated
- Limit ad tracking via your device (eg on iPhone go to Privacy -> Advertising -> Limit ad tracking) and biggest ad networks (for Google, go to Google account and turn off ad personalization)
- Request your data be deleted once you stop using the app. Simply deleting an app from your device usually does not erase your personal data.
- When starting a sign-up, do not agree to tracking of your data if possible.
Kann es mich ausspionieren?
Kamera
Gerät: Nicht verfügbar
App: Nein
Mikrofon
Gerät: Nicht verfügbar
App: Ja
Verfolgt den Standort
Gerät: Nicht verfügbar
App: Nein
Was kann zur Registrierung verwendet werden?
E-Mail-Adresse
Ja
Telefonnummer
Nein
Drittanbieter-Konto
Nein
Welche Daten sammelt das Unternehmen?
Persönliche
Name, postal address, telephone number, or email address.
Körperbezogen
Soziale
Basic information about your family and children.
Wie nutzt das Unternehmen die Daten?
Wie können Sie Ihre Daten kontrollieren?
Wie ist das Unternehmen in der Vergangenheit mit den Daten über seine Verbraucher umgegangen?
No known privacy or security incidents discovered in the last 3 years.
Informationen zum Datenschutz bei Kindern
Kann dieses Produkt offline genutzt werden?
Benutzerfreundliche Informationen zum Datenschutz?
Links zu Datenschutzinformationen
Erfüllt dieses Produkt unsere Mindestsicherheitsstandards?
Verschlüsselung
Sicheres Passwort
Sicherheits-Updates
Umgang mit Schwachstellen
To report potential security vulnerabilities, please write to [email protected].
Datenschutzrichtlinie
Tauchen Sie tiefer ein
-
Breathe, Think, Do with SesameCommon Sense Education
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Privacy Evaluation for Breathe, Think, Do with SesameCommon Sense Privacy Program
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Protecting Your Child’s Privacy OnlineFederal Trade Commission Consumer Advice
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